Abstract

Population inversion has been generated through the mixing of CO2 or N2O into a supersonic N2flow, vibrationally excited by thermal means. Gain at 10.6μ, corresponding to the 001 → 100 transition in CO2, equal to 0.8%/cm has been measured in this medium. Using an optical cavity, oriented transverse to the flow, up to 60‐W cw laser power at 10.6μ from CO2 was extracted from a 5‐cm length by 1.2‐cm2 cross‐section active volume. When N2O was substituted for CO2 in the mixing region, cw laser emission was demonstrated at 10.8μ, corresponding to the 001 → 100 transition in N2O.